Friday, June 29, 2018

My fiction is very much
character-driven. I tend to create my characters first and then find
things for them to do. They interest me more than the stories. I am
certainly not the only writer to put characters first; it is
something of a trademark of so-called ‘upmarket’ fiction.

The publishing world would most
certainly put my adult Florida novels, the two Cully Beach titles and
the recent ‘Asanas,’ in that marketing niche. They are relatively
leisurely in their pace and not driven by their stories as much as
they are by the growth of their characters. I would be inclined to
call them upmarket or middle-brow or something of that sort myself.
They are not literary fiction nor are they ‘commercial’ genre
novels.

So what of my fantasies? Darned if I
know. There has always been a strong literary element in the fantasy
genre (quite unlike science fiction). Dunsany, Eddison, Cabell — I
could name names all day. I would not go so far as to call my own
fantasy novels literary fiction. At least that has never been my
intention! Ultimately, they too are more about their characters than
anything else. Never mind that those characters may sometimes be
wizards or gods. They are still pretty human.

Any ‘ideas’ that are put forth grow
out of those characters and their actions; I’ve never set out to
intentionally ‘say’ something. Not that I don’t say quite a
bit. I am quite as opinionated as the next author — I wouldn’t
bother to write were I not. But both ideas and stories arise from
humans and their interactions; that is why I start with characters.